Dave I'm talking about a mono passive box that was discontinued over 10 yrs ago over a patent problem. I know they have a new one out but can't vouch for it Dave.
The old ones are as rare as hen's teeth to find these days.

Originally posted by shikawkee The Palmer I heard was the current production model Dave.
It sounded much better than almost every one of the modelers I've heard thus far. It would be interesting to compare the two.

We need to do that one of these days, Ed - not next week, but maybe the week after that...

I've never heard the old one... but the PGA-04 has been working very well for me. FWIW Dave, I prefer it to the stereo PGA-05... which might have something to do with it having a load on it that the 05 doesn't have.

As far as I know the model that is a copy of the Groove Tubes was the original Marshall SE-100 which was built under license using some of the same technology as the GT and therefore discontinued when the license arrangement stopped. The PDI-03 is an earlier product than the GT and the Marshall.

I have heard the PDI-03 and have never heard the PDI-04 but people I know that have heard both say that while the PDI-04 is good it is not as good as the PDI-03. Now that might have a lot to do with the fact that they're getting hard to find...

And in relation to the price: yup they've gone up which is bad because they were already fetching silly money on ebay a few years back - mainly due to the Van Halen connection which is well documented in certain guitar quarters... I had originally had two and sold one of them on ebay to Joe Satriani of all people. Apparently he is a bit of a collector - he certainly paid well - in excess of 1000 dollars (and that was when the dollar was doing good against Sterling).

How much they're going for now I don't know - my last one is just sitting here waiting for... yeah a SLAM would be a good idea... maybe an SSL 384... IMHO a 57 still does a much better job, but that may well be because I don't know how to treat the Palmer with comp/eq. In fact: if Mike or anyone else has any ideas they'd want to share on that that would be cool...

As far as processing I tend to treat it petty much like a mic'd speaker... comp/ eq if I feel the need. The unit's got some pretty cool voicing stuff right on board with the ability to either use the voiced signal, the "full range" sound, or mix them to taste. Adding just a whisp of reverb (a room preset usualy) can work wonders... at least for me.